Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I don't have a lot of spare time, so books tend to take a while for me to get through unless I'm on a plane. In the Devil's Garden, however, wouldn't let me put it down and I "devoured" it in one delicious sitting. The book great fun to read -- the author obviously is well traveled and definitely did his homework. There's not too much science, history, religion or sociology to be overpowering -- just the right amount of each. HIGHLY recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I don't have a lot of spare time, so books tend to take a while for me to get through unless I'm on a plane. In the Devil's Garden, however, wouldn't let me put it down and I "devoured" it in one delicious sitting. The book great fun to read -- the author obviously is well traveled and definitely did his homework. There's not too much science, history, religion or sociology to be overpowering -- just the right amount of each. HIGHLY recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Gruesome Food Facts
Review: I have read about 3/4 of this book, and may not finish it. The gory details of cannibalism are interspersed throughout the book, including the description of infants and children being sold and prepared for consumption. While I understand that cannibalism and human sacrifice has been practiced in a number of cultures, it is not something I find humorous or entertaining to read about.
Rating:
Summary: Gruesome Food Facts
Review: I have read about 3/4 of this book, and may not finish it. The gory details of cannibalism are interspersed throughout the book, including the description of infants and children being sold and prepared for consumption. While I understand that cannibalism and human sacrifice has been practiced in a number of cultures, it is not something I find humorous or entertaining to read about.
Rating:
Summary: Beware!
Review: No doubt Stewart Lee Allen was pleased with the success of "The Devil's Cup", a fine travelogue/meditation on coffee. With this book, it seems he decided to indulge himself a little, which actually turned out to be quite a lot. He attempts to display wit throughout, but for the most part Allen's wit is supercilious and sophomoric, and would to many seem to be the product of a vastly overinflated ego. In fact, "In The Devil's Garden" is laden with inaccuracies in both fact and interpretation. Simultaneously, Allen takes pleasure in virulently anti-Christian prejudices. Time and again he discusses "the Christians" as if retailing a particularly juicy piece of scandalous gossip which instead is really no more than a figment of his ignorance and over-heated literalistic imagination. But, have no fear, the author slanders all religions East and West with equal verve. This purports, after all, to be a book about food, which features in most faith traditions. To add to the horror of it all, his misuse of the English language is beyond belief. About a third of the way through I began to circle the malapropisms as if I were a high school English teacher. Two thirds through I gave up. I only finished this book to make sure it really is as bad as I thought. It was. It is a mercy to literature that "In the Devil's Garden" is out of print. R.I.P. May it never be revived.
Rating: 
Summary: No need to beware
Review: The previous critic is quite right that Allens wit is both supercilious and at times sophomoric, which was quite distracting. However, the facts were very interesting and well presented, which made the book a good read. I assume the previous critic was mostly offended because of his/her religious beliefs. The book does not attack Christianity - the fact is that throughout history there has been senseless torture and killing in the name of Christianity and God. To sugar-coat or ignore that would be a "sin".
Rating:
Summary: Grand Unified Theory for Foodies
Review: This book is an absolute must for the food enthusiast or the information junkie. More than just a food book, /In the Devil's Garden/ deals with how food /is/ culture- it argues that much of who we are and how we interact with one another has to do with what we do, and do not, eat. Allen is an excellent information gatherer, having delved into several hundred sources for his material; but more importantly, he is adept at the witty repackaging of that information, deftly filing everything under the aegises of the seven deadly sins. Allen's style is just conversational enough, neither dry nor condescending and very humorous-- perfect for the small-article format that comprises most of the sections of the book.
The content is almost overwhelmingly eclectic, drawing on scores (perhaps hundreds) of cultures. Allen reconciles many seemingly disparate facts and draws parallels between such subjects as the crunch volume of potato chips and the animal need to kill (!), all with consummate skill and grace. Be forewarned, the book is not necessarily a good lunchtime read; many of the sections deal with food-related illness or delicacies the Western palate finds unacceptable, and one or two of the little tidbits are downright nasty (vide the eating habits of St. Veronica). Buy this as a gift and you won't be able to part with it; get two.
Rating:
Summary: A romp through food taboos
Review: This book is an informal exploration of food taboos, from apples to potatoes, pig flesh to human flesh. The book is organized into chapters featuring the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, pride, sloth, greed, blasphemy, and anger. Each chapter is comprised of short informative articles related to the relevant sinful theme that describe the social history of a food taboo. For example, in the chapter called "Lust," we learn how the apple came to be associated with Eve's forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Allen points out that apples were hardly common Middle Eastern fruit during Biblical times. They were, however, sacred to the Celts, and when Christians came into Celtic territory, they demonized the sacred fruit of the Celts by translating the Biblical word for the forbidden fruit, one whose botanical identify is not known for sure, as "apple." Allen states: "The Celts had associated apples with the glorious wisdom from the sun. By the time the Christians were done, scholars had assigned it to `the jurisdiction of Venus' and lust." Each chapter also includes several recipes featuring the foods under description. Some of the recipes are historical rather than in contemporary usage, but virtual all have been updated for modern kitchens and cooks. Sources are cited in extensive textual endnotes. There is also a bibliography and index.
Taboos of all kinds are often closely related with religious beliefs. Allen describes some common religious taboos relating to food, such as Jewish and Muslim avoidance of pork, and Hindu extreme reverence for cattle. One interesting point that Allen makes is that Christ was blatant in his practice of disregarding Jewish food laws, establishing a religion that is remarkably free of food taboos. Allen pokes fun at our modern diet practices, but he also makes some serious points, noting that "convenience foods are so unpleasant they make even work look good. They're also immensely profitable for the corporations who produce them...American workers now pay more money for worse food so they can hurry back to jobs they hate." In his conclusion, Allen observes "The point is that these archaic food taboos and rules, however preposterous and evil they may have at times been, also deepened our lives by imbuing our most common social gathering with meaning."
Occasionally, Allen plays fast and loose with details. For example, he has European peasants munching Macintoshes, but the Macintosh variety of apples was developed only in 1870 in New England. He also misses some major taboos- -of course in a book of this nature, we can't expect him to cover everything related to the topic. But when he describes garlic and religious injunctions against it, he never mentions avoidance by some Hindus of garlic and onions on the grounds that they are "intoxicating" or "over-stimulating". Such an omission is surprising, given the other information he provides both about Indian traditions and garlic. Allen's style of writing is informal--he writes to entertain as well as inform, making the book appeal to general readers rather than academic food historians. Since this is a book about breaking taboos, readers shouldn't be too taken aback at the kinds of topics Allen choose to delve into, but they might not want to consider this a read-aloud book for the whole family if small children are to participate.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting
Review: This is a unique look at the history of food: both funny and shocking, it shows the unbleievable ways what we eat has influenced history. It also gives a number of recipes that are quite unique. Its the kind of book you can stop and start on, a group of pieces, maybe 50, divided into "chapters" based on the seven Deadly Sins of Lust, Greed, Envy, Sloth. Mr. Allen is a very, very good writer and has found some amazing stories here and has a knack for boiling down extremely complicated historical events into enjoyable stories. He also appears to have done ann enormous amount of research into the subject.Not your usual food book, I'd highly recommend it. For me, it really made me think twice about the meaning of what I eat. If you know a foodie friend that needs a gift, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: best book on food
Review: What I have found so interesting about this book is the way people's feeling about eating have been used in political and religous ways. I had no idea of the role eating has played in so many conflicts - even the division of Europe between East and West was caused by an argument over how to bake the communion wafer. AIDS came from violating a food taboo, and even Jesus Last supper was all about the rules of eating. It's an amazing book and very, very well written - you would think with all this information it would be dry but Alan is a very funny man. While I thought the idea of organizing it around the Seven Sins was a good one, its not always completely clear why a particualr food is in a particular sin.
Not that it matters that much - by the way, my favorite was the sin of sloth "a victimless crime if ever there was one" as Allen says -a man after my own heart!
I thought the "menus" were cute and the recipes (there are about 12) looked interesting but I haven't tried any.
THis is the best book on food in history I have ever read
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